Join us at 7:00 for a reading by Martha Collins at the Montgomery Street YMCA. In addition to poems, there will also be coffee & people. So these are three amazing reasons to attend. Need more? Read these reviews of Martha's book BLUE FRONT & then talk to me about it later - 7:00. Downtown Y.
Collins has a story to tell, but she makes the reader work for it. She is, at least with regard to syntax, a language poet — she suppresses punctuation and traffics in fragmentary non sequiturs; her shifts in perspective are abrupt. Therefore nothing about the narrative is straight. Her discursive, breathless, self-contradicting, breaking-off-and-circling-back technique makes the book feel like the testimony of a traumatized witness.
NY Times.
Collins forces the reader to enact the work of making meaning from that which is fragmentary, revised, and erased. And it stands in, too, for the brackish flood of connotations pooling up inside the language itself, inside words like track, lynch, cut, and burn, which take on—through Collins’s luminous interspersed riffs on their definitions and colloquial usages.
The Literary Review.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
ASSIGNMENT: Martha Collins
Up today, a writing assignment to keep you limber, courtesy of Martha Collins.
This assignment is an attempt to help you do what interviewer Beth Rogers just asked me about: to create “a fusion of the personal and the historical.” What you write down in response to #’s 1-5 is not intended to be a poem, or even the beginning of a poem: it’s just notes. So write quickly, without thinking too hard; when you’re finished, you can go back and think further about the questions and answers.
1. Write down the names of all the places where you’ve lived a significant part of your life, beginning with where you were born. Leave some white space between them.
2. Now write down, for each place, (a) something of historical significance that happened there, and (b) the name of one or more historical or living persons who have achieved a certain amount of fame or attention, even if only on a local level.
3. Now do the same for your mother, beginning with where she was born.
4. Now do the same for your father.
5. Now ponder your notes (1-4) until something begins to make you want to know more. Write down as much as you know that’s relevant to what you’re wondering about—and then go to the library and/or internet and see what else you can find.
Your notes should be getting longer. When something begins to echo not just as fact but as language, you may be ready to start writing a poem, even if your research is incomplete.
This assignment is an attempt to help you do what interviewer Beth Rogers just asked me about: to create “a fusion of the personal and the historical.” What you write down in response to #’s 1-5 is not intended to be a poem, or even the beginning of a poem: it’s just notes. So write quickly, without thinking too hard; when you’re finished, you can go back and think further about the questions and answers.
1. Write down the names of all the places where you’ve lived a significant part of your life, beginning with where you were born. Leave some white space between them.
2. Now write down, for each place, (a) something of historical significance that happened there, and (b) the name of one or more historical or living persons who have achieved a certain amount of fame or attention, even if only on a local level.
3. Now do the same for your mother, beginning with where she was born.
4. Now do the same for your father.
5. Now ponder your notes (1-4) until something begins to make you want to know more. Write down as much as you know that’s relevant to what you’re wondering about—and then go to the library and/or internet and see what else you can find.
Your notes should be getting longer. When something begins to echo not just as fact but as language, you may be ready to start writing a poem, even if your research is incomplete.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
An Interview with Martha Collins
Did I mention that Martha Collins is reading at the DWC this week (Friday @ 7)? Because she is. Here, Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers talks to Collins about BLUE FRONT, extinction, distinction & discrimination.
INTERVIEW WITH MARTHA COLLINS:
1. Describe your initial inspiration(s) for writing BLUE FRONT. Did you begin this project with a specific goal or intention, or realize, mid-process, what kind of book you were writing?
Several years ago I saw an exhibit of lynching postcards in New York. It was shocking, first because of the often horrendous images of lynching scenes and victims on the postcards, but also because they were postcards, which were sold for souvenirs, or for people to send to relatives and friends. What shocked me most, though, was coming upon a group of cards from Cairo, Illinois, and realizing that the hanging my father had once told me he saw there when he was a kid was not some kind of awful but legal public execution, but rather the lynching of a black man (and later, as a kind of afterthought, a white man) that was witnessed by 10,000 people. My father was no longer living, but I explored what I knew of his life and the town of Cairo at the same time that I was extensively researching the lynching itself. I began writing a year after I saw the exhibit, but long before I finished the research. My first goal was to find out what, most literally, happened; but I was more importantly wondering how such an event would have affected my five-year-old white father. Increasingly, I began to realize that I was even more deeply interested in what all of this had to do with me, a white woman living 100 years later. That last issue is central to the work I’m doing now.
2. In what ways was BLUE FRONT related to or in conversation with your previous work? How is this book different from your others?
My early work, like that of many poets, was often focused on my own perceptions, feelings, and, to a lesser extent, my life. I had always responded, occasionally, to social and political issues; but my third book took a deliberate turn in that direction, even as the work became somewhat more fragmented and experimental. Blue Front continues both of these trends, but in fact utilizes techniques that I’ve used throughout my writing career. I had written long sequences of poems before (my second book is comprised of three of them), but Blue Front of course extends that process.
3.You've described BLUE FRONT as a book-length poem rather than a collection of poems. What reasons do you have for making this distinction?
Partly because I was writing before my research was finished, many of the sections give only partial accounts of what I was thinking, or what I was thinking might have happened (the point of view throughout the book is one of wondering, speculating). Many of the sections were therefore necessarily incomplete from the outset: they made no sense out of context. The more I wrote, though, the more I realized that the whole work was a process, and that I really had no interest in creating poems that would make sense on their own; I was interested in something much more like a fragmented novel—and the process of writing actually reminded me of writing a novel, which is something I once did.
4. BLUE FRONT is a fusion of the historical and the personal. In your work, how do you think that these two modes complement, inform, or struggle with one another?
I like your description of that fusion: it’s really what the book was about, from the moment I held the catalog of lynching postcards in one metaphorical hand and a scrapbook of my father’s childhood in the other. Of course there’s a great deal of tension—struggle, in your word—between the two: the horror of the event on the one hand, the tenderness I felt toward my five-year-old father on the other. But the fusion of the two modes is the book’s reason for being: one would simply not be there without the other.
5.. BLUE FRONT raises difficult questions about discrimination and the silenced, radicalized "other" in US history. As a white woman, what fears (if any) did you have in writing and publishing this work? What have been the outcomes of publishing a book of poems that is so socially charged?
Initially, the voices in my mind that I call the “censors” told me that I simply couldn’t write poetry about a lynching—and that I certainly shouldn’t be doing so as a white person. But I’ve learned to treat those censors as muses in disguise: when they start talking to me, I think I must be on to something. Ever since the book’s publication, I know there have been actual readers (or refusers to read) who echo those voices, though they have only rarely spoken to me. Several white people have asked me what it felt like to be writing African-American history as a white person—and I know their question reflects the doubts and objections of some black people as well. My short answer has been something like this: Okay, if you were to film the lynching part of this book, how many black actors would you have to hire, and how many white actors and extras? The long answer has taken me into the book-length project of untitled poems I’ve just finished, called White Papers. It continues to affect both my work and my life.
Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers is a MFA student at Cornell University. Her poems have appeared in Chautauqua Literary Journal, StorySouth, The Comstock Review, The Asheville Review, on Poetry Daily, and others. She has been a finalist for several chapbook competitions and for Mid-American Review’s James Wright poetry prize.
INTERVIEW WITH MARTHA COLLINS:
1. Describe your initial inspiration(s) for writing BLUE FRONT. Did you begin this project with a specific goal or intention, or realize, mid-process, what kind of book you were writing?
Several years ago I saw an exhibit of lynching postcards in New York. It was shocking, first because of the often horrendous images of lynching scenes and victims on the postcards, but also because they were postcards, which were sold for souvenirs, or for people to send to relatives and friends. What shocked me most, though, was coming upon a group of cards from Cairo, Illinois, and realizing that the hanging my father had once told me he saw there when he was a kid was not some kind of awful but legal public execution, but rather the lynching of a black man (and later, as a kind of afterthought, a white man) that was witnessed by 10,000 people. My father was no longer living, but I explored what I knew of his life and the town of Cairo at the same time that I was extensively researching the lynching itself. I began writing a year after I saw the exhibit, but long before I finished the research. My first goal was to find out what, most literally, happened; but I was more importantly wondering how such an event would have affected my five-year-old white father. Increasingly, I began to realize that I was even more deeply interested in what all of this had to do with me, a white woman living 100 years later. That last issue is central to the work I’m doing now.
2. In what ways was BLUE FRONT related to or in conversation with your previous work? How is this book different from your others?
My early work, like that of many poets, was often focused on my own perceptions, feelings, and, to a lesser extent, my life. I had always responded, occasionally, to social and political issues; but my third book took a deliberate turn in that direction, even as the work became somewhat more fragmented and experimental. Blue Front continues both of these trends, but in fact utilizes techniques that I’ve used throughout my writing career. I had written long sequences of poems before (my second book is comprised of three of them), but Blue Front of course extends that process.
3.You've described BLUE FRONT as a book-length poem rather than a collection of poems. What reasons do you have for making this distinction?
Partly because I was writing before my research was finished, many of the sections give only partial accounts of what I was thinking, or what I was thinking might have happened (the point of view throughout the book is one of wondering, speculating). Many of the sections were therefore necessarily incomplete from the outset: they made no sense out of context. The more I wrote, though, the more I realized that the whole work was a process, and that I really had no interest in creating poems that would make sense on their own; I was interested in something much more like a fragmented novel—and the process of writing actually reminded me of writing a novel, which is something I once did.
4. BLUE FRONT is a fusion of the historical and the personal. In your work, how do you think that these two modes complement, inform, or struggle with one another?
I like your description of that fusion: it’s really what the book was about, from the moment I held the catalog of lynching postcards in one metaphorical hand and a scrapbook of my father’s childhood in the other. Of course there’s a great deal of tension—struggle, in your word—between the two: the horror of the event on the one hand, the tenderness I felt toward my five-year-old father on the other. But the fusion of the two modes is the book’s reason for being: one would simply not be there without the other.
5.. BLUE FRONT raises difficult questions about discrimination and the silenced, radicalized "other" in US history. As a white woman, what fears (if any) did you have in writing and publishing this work? What have been the outcomes of publishing a book of poems that is so socially charged?
Initially, the voices in my mind that I call the “censors” told me that I simply couldn’t write poetry about a lynching—and that I certainly shouldn’t be doing so as a white person. But I’ve learned to treat those censors as muses in disguise: when they start talking to me, I think I must be on to something. Ever since the book’s publication, I know there have been actual readers (or refusers to read) who echo those voices, though they have only rarely spoken to me. Several white people have asked me what it felt like to be writing African-American history as a white person—and I know their question reflects the doubts and objections of some black people as well. My short answer has been something like this: Okay, if you were to film the lynching part of this book, how many black actors would you have to hire, and how many white actors and extras? The long answer has taken me into the book-length project of untitled poems I’ve just finished, called White Papers. It continues to affect both my work and my life.
Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers is a MFA student at Cornell University. Her poems have appeared in Chautauqua Literary Journal, StorySouth, The Comstock Review, The Asheville Review, on Poetry Daily, and others. She has been a finalist for several chapbook competitions and for Mid-American Review’s James Wright poetry prize.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Small Press Spotlight :: Graywolf Press
This Friday, April 30th at 7:00, the Downtown Writer's Center hosts a reading by Martha Collins. Her book BLUE FRONT was released by Graywolf Press in 2006 so it seemed appropriate to run this spotlight on her publisher!
Calling Graywolf "small" might seem sort of silly; however, you'll find in this Q&A orchestrated by the DWC's Tammy Danielewicz that it's that independent spirit that fuels them.
***
Graywolf Press is an independent, non-profit publisher located in Minneapolis, MN. Graywolf publishes between 20 and 30 books per year, including the recipient of the Emily Dickinson First Book Award, given to an American Poet over the age of 50 who has yet to publish a first book of poetry, and the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize winner. Graywolf writers have been among finalists and winners of a staggering number of prestigious literary awards. After thirty-five years, Graywolf continues to seek out the creative and adventurous authors of important and overlooked books.
The following questions were answered collaboratively by Katie Dublinski (Managing and Editorial Director), Marisa Atkinson (Marketing Assistant), and Steve Woodward (Editorial Assistant).
Tell me about the history of Graywolf Press. Who was it started by? Where and when did it start?
The following are a few key highlights in Graywolf’s history. A more complete history is available in full of the Graywolf website (www.graywolfpress.org).
Graywolf Press was founded by Scott Walker in Port Townsend, Washington in 1974. He started by working out of a space provided by Copper Canyon Press before moving to a shop of his own (a small outbuilding in Scott’s backyard) that Scott affectionately called the “print shack.” At this time, each book was hand-set and hand-printed on treadle-operated machines. The first full-length poetry book that Scott published in this way was Instructions to the Double by Tess Gallagher, who is still publishing with Graywolf. Tess’s most recent collection of short stories was published in 2009.
Graywolf was incorporated as a 501©3 nonprofit in 1984 and moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1985, thanks to generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts and other local philanthropic organizations. In 1994, Scott Walker resigned and Graywolf was run by board president Page Cowles until October of 1994, when Fiona McCrae was named as the new director. In 2002, Graywolf moved its distribution to Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, a prestigious New York publisher. In September 2009 we moved our office to the Traffic Zone Building in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
What was the original objective of the press? How has that objective changed or evolved with the growth of the press?
Graywolf started out as a poetry-only press that produced short-run, limited edition work. Now that original intention—to get poetry that mattered out in the world—has expanded to include fiction and nonfiction, in addition to poetry. And the scale has changed dramatically, so that Graywolf books are available nationally, to many readers, rather than just a limited number of readers in the Pacific Northwest region where Graywolf was founded.
To what do you attribute the growth of the press? Was the growth planned or intentional, or did it happen more organically?
It’s really a combination of a number of things. As Graywolf and its books gained more and more attention, a similar initiative on the part of Scott Walker to continue getting important and overlooked books out into the world helped push Graywolf to grow. The move to St. Paul from Port Townsend was part of a well thought out plan that not only allowed Graywolf to take advantage of a change in federal law that allowed publishing companies to be classified as nonprofit organizations, but also helped Graywolf gain the support of the larger Twin Cities donor base. Since the beginning, the Minnesota funding community, particularly the foundations here, encouraged the move and welcomed the press as part of the nonprofit, literary community. In turn this support has helped Graywolf stay financially solvent and has enabled Graywolf to become the nationally recognized publisher of books that win major awards and capture critical attention.
What is Graywolf able to offer to authors as a mid-size press that other publishers (both smaller and larger) can not?
Graywolf is in a great position as a “mid-size” house. We have a national and international reputation for our outstanding literature, have won several major literary awards in the last few years, and are starting to gain a more mainstream visibility. That said, having a smaller list means that we provide a more personal, hands-on experience for our authors that a larger house with hundreds of books might not be able to provide. We might not be able to complete with some of the larger houses in terms of marketing budgets, for example, but we do have more time to spend pitching books to media, setting up events for our authors, etc.
Advice for someone interested in submitting to Graywolf?
For advice for your readers interested in submitting to our press, I would direct them to carefully read our complete submission guidelines, which are available on our website (http://www.graywolfpress.org). These guidelines should have all of the information they need and should answer all of their questions.
It might be interesting to note that Graywolf has a huge social media network online. No matter what your readers’ favorite social media outlet, Graywolf most likely has presence there:
www.twitter.com/graywolfpress
www.facebook.com/graywolfpress
www.formspring.me/graywolfpress
And we’ve also just started a Graywolf Press Goodreads group at Goodreads.com, where we’ll host the first-ever Graywolf Press Book Club in April. To join the group, visit: http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/31817.Graywolf_Press (Sorry, no easy custom URL for this one!)
Calling Graywolf "small" might seem sort of silly; however, you'll find in this Q&A orchestrated by the DWC's Tammy Danielewicz that it's that independent spirit that fuels them.
***
Graywolf Press is an independent, non-profit publisher located in Minneapolis, MN. Graywolf publishes between 20 and 30 books per year, including the recipient of the Emily Dickinson First Book Award, given to an American Poet over the age of 50 who has yet to publish a first book of poetry, and the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize winner. Graywolf writers have been among finalists and winners of a staggering number of prestigious literary awards. After thirty-five years, Graywolf continues to seek out the creative and adventurous authors of important and overlooked books.
The following questions were answered collaboratively by Katie Dublinski (Managing and Editorial Director), Marisa Atkinson (Marketing Assistant), and Steve Woodward (Editorial Assistant).
Tell me about the history of Graywolf Press. Who was it started by? Where and when did it start?
The following are a few key highlights in Graywolf’s history. A more complete history is available in full of the Graywolf website (www.graywolfpress.org).
Graywolf Press was founded by Scott Walker in Port Townsend, Washington in 1974. He started by working out of a space provided by Copper Canyon Press before moving to a shop of his own (a small outbuilding in Scott’s backyard) that Scott affectionately called the “print shack.” At this time, each book was hand-set and hand-printed on treadle-operated machines. The first full-length poetry book that Scott published in this way was Instructions to the Double by Tess Gallagher, who is still publishing with Graywolf. Tess’s most recent collection of short stories was published in 2009.
Graywolf was incorporated as a 501©3 nonprofit in 1984 and moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1985, thanks to generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts and other local philanthropic organizations. In 1994, Scott Walker resigned and Graywolf was run by board president Page Cowles until October of 1994, when Fiona McCrae was named as the new director. In 2002, Graywolf moved its distribution to Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, a prestigious New York publisher. In September 2009 we moved our office to the Traffic Zone Building in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
What was the original objective of the press? How has that objective changed or evolved with the growth of the press?
Graywolf started out as a poetry-only press that produced short-run, limited edition work. Now that original intention—to get poetry that mattered out in the world—has expanded to include fiction and nonfiction, in addition to poetry. And the scale has changed dramatically, so that Graywolf books are available nationally, to many readers, rather than just a limited number of readers in the Pacific Northwest region where Graywolf was founded.
To what do you attribute the growth of the press? Was the growth planned or intentional, or did it happen more organically?
It’s really a combination of a number of things. As Graywolf and its books gained more and more attention, a similar initiative on the part of Scott Walker to continue getting important and overlooked books out into the world helped push Graywolf to grow. The move to St. Paul from Port Townsend was part of a well thought out plan that not only allowed Graywolf to take advantage of a change in federal law that allowed publishing companies to be classified as nonprofit organizations, but also helped Graywolf gain the support of the larger Twin Cities donor base. Since the beginning, the Minnesota funding community, particularly the foundations here, encouraged the move and welcomed the press as part of the nonprofit, literary community. In turn this support has helped Graywolf stay financially solvent and has enabled Graywolf to become the nationally recognized publisher of books that win major awards and capture critical attention.
What is Graywolf able to offer to authors as a mid-size press that other publishers (both smaller and larger) can not?
Graywolf is in a great position as a “mid-size” house. We have a national and international reputation for our outstanding literature, have won several major literary awards in the last few years, and are starting to gain a more mainstream visibility. That said, having a smaller list means that we provide a more personal, hands-on experience for our authors that a larger house with hundreds of books might not be able to provide. We might not be able to complete with some of the larger houses in terms of marketing budgets, for example, but we do have more time to spend pitching books to media, setting up events for our authors, etc.
Advice for someone interested in submitting to Graywolf?
For advice for your readers interested in submitting to our press, I would direct them to carefully read our complete submission guidelines, which are available on our website (http://www.graywolfpress.org). These guidelines should have all of the information they need and should answer all of their questions.
It might be interesting to note that Graywolf has a huge social media network online. No matter what your readers’ favorite social media outlet, Graywolf most likely has presence there:
www.twitter.com/graywolfpress
www.facebook.com/graywolfpress
www.formspring.me/graywolfpress
And we’ve also just started a Graywolf Press Goodreads group at Goodreads.com, where we’ll host the first-ever Graywolf Press Book Club in April. To join the group, visit: http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/31817.Graywolf_Press (Sorry, no easy custom URL for this one!)
Thursday, April 22, 2010
The Famous Five - Questions for DeLana Dameron - A Critical Lens, A Meal, and a Hot Tub
In the fall season 2009, Georgia Popoff taught a lit. class in contemporary and emerging African American poets. One of our guests coming to read for the DWC Spring series this Friday, DeLana Dameron, was one of the writers featured in the syllabus. As we have developed the habit of asking many of our visiting writers, here are DeLana's answers to five questions from the random inquiry generator:
Georgia Popoff: The spiritual aspect of How God Ends Us is so much the spine. Can you speak a bit about your missionary work as well as how the words may focus or open your spiritual self through the work?
DeLana Dameron: I was a freshman in college at the University of North Carolina when I went to Jamaica. That was the first and only missions trip I embarked on. I decided that I couldn’t continue in my own religious/spiritual journey in that way, being that the trip was so rife with racial tensions – the group I traveled with was white, the community in Jamaica we visited was, as you know, mostly black. I already had my ideas about the situation, about who I am as a Christian before I wrote the poems; it just sort of allowed me a space to put them into more concrete terms, a space to explore. I like to think of my poems that engage the Christian God as a space where I can have a conversation, an argument. Kind of like a public prayer. A place where I say: "Look, I believe in you, but here’s my issues."
GP: Place is obviously significant in your poems, as it is to so many poets. What do you feel is the relationship between geography/location and your inspiration?
DD: When people ask me where I write, I like to say: “I write in the world.” I live in a studio in Harlem (I lovingly call it “the Perch”), and even before this small space, I made this one rule for my writing: I will only use my living space for living. So, I’m generally out and engaging and watching the world/landscape I’m living in when I’m writing the poems, and they find their ways in.
GP: Many of us at the DWC are foodies; food is an important aspect in our lives individually as well as in events. For instance, we have a series of dinners as an annual fundraiser. What is your favorite cuisine and what would be your favorite meal?
DD: I’m a foodie as well. I love to cook. I suppose my favorite cuisine is Mediterranean or Middle Eastern. My favorite meal is any Ethiopian dish served over injera.
GP: Now that your first book is birthed, what is next?
DD: I want to increase my prose presence in the world. I’ve drafted a novel; I have some essays. I just need to push them out and let go of them. Also, a second collection, Cartographer, is circulating at some prizes. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!
GP: If you could be in a hot tub for a long chat with five other people, living or dead, who would they be and why?
DD: Aye. A hot tub is such an intimate space. I’d want to invite some long lost family members, but that might be weird. I’d say some of my favorite writers (some living, some dead; though, I’d hope in the hot tub, they’d be alive!): Toni Morrison, Mahmoud Darwish, John Hope Franklin, Jacob Lawrence, Zora Neale Hurston.
Thanks DeLana and we hope that many of our members will mark their calendars for this Friday when DeLana Dameron and Jane Springer share their work. As always, the reading starts at 7:00 p.m. and is FREE! Everybody bring a buddy!
Georgia Popoff, a member of the DWC faculty and frequent contributor to our blog, likes thinking up interview topics and generally questioning the world.
Georgia Popoff: The spiritual aspect of How God Ends Us is so much the spine. Can you speak a bit about your missionary work as well as how the words may focus or open your spiritual self through the work?
DeLana Dameron: I was a freshman in college at the University of North Carolina when I went to Jamaica. That was the first and only missions trip I embarked on. I decided that I couldn’t continue in my own religious/spiritual journey in that way, being that the trip was so rife with racial tensions – the group I traveled with was white, the community in Jamaica we visited was, as you know, mostly black. I already had my ideas about the situation, about who I am as a Christian before I wrote the poems; it just sort of allowed me a space to put them into more concrete terms, a space to explore. I like to think of my poems that engage the Christian God as a space where I can have a conversation, an argument. Kind of like a public prayer. A place where I say: "Look, I believe in you, but here’s my issues."
GP: Place is obviously significant in your poems, as it is to so many poets. What do you feel is the relationship between geography/location and your inspiration?
DD: When people ask me where I write, I like to say: “I write in the world.” I live in a studio in Harlem (I lovingly call it “the Perch”), and even before this small space, I made this one rule for my writing: I will only use my living space for living. So, I’m generally out and engaging and watching the world/landscape I’m living in when I’m writing the poems, and they find their ways in.
GP: Many of us at the DWC are foodies; food is an important aspect in our lives individually as well as in events. For instance, we have a series of dinners as an annual fundraiser. What is your favorite cuisine and what would be your favorite meal?
DD: I’m a foodie as well. I love to cook. I suppose my favorite cuisine is Mediterranean or Middle Eastern. My favorite meal is any Ethiopian dish served over injera.
GP: Now that your first book is birthed, what is next?
DD: I want to increase my prose presence in the world. I’ve drafted a novel; I have some essays. I just need to push them out and let go of them. Also, a second collection, Cartographer, is circulating at some prizes. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!
GP: If you could be in a hot tub for a long chat with five other people, living or dead, who would they be and why?
DD: Aye. A hot tub is such an intimate space. I’d want to invite some long lost family members, but that might be weird. I’d say some of my favorite writers (some living, some dead; though, I’d hope in the hot tub, they’d be alive!): Toni Morrison, Mahmoud Darwish, John Hope Franklin, Jacob Lawrence, Zora Neale Hurston.
Thanks DeLana and we hope that many of our members will mark their calendars for this Friday when DeLana Dameron and Jane Springer share their work. As always, the reading starts at 7:00 p.m. and is FREE! Everybody bring a buddy!
Georgia Popoff, a member of the DWC faculty and frequent contributor to our blog, likes thinking up interview topics and generally questioning the world.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Two Reminders
Spring classes begin next week with offerings in poetry, fiction, drama and non-fiction -- and there's still room in every workshop. Please check out the schedule and sign up soon!
Wondering where to park when you come to the DWC? You're not alone. Parking is probably our second most asked question. Here's the run down of where and how:
Street parking. There are plenty of meters on Montgomery Street, starting at Washington Street (near City Hall and L'Adour) all the way to where Montgomery ends at Jefferson Street. There are also meters on Jefferson, Warren, and around Columbus Circle -- in front of the Cathedral and the Court House, and down East Onondaga Street. Meters are free after 6:00.
Open paid lots. There are two open lots near the Downtown YMCA. One at the corner of Montgomery and Fayette, across from St. Paul's Cathedral, and one on East Onondaga, across from the Syracuse Diocese Offices.
Parking garages. The parking garage directly behind the YMCA on Warren Street has a walk through entrance to the Y. Please note that this entrance will be closed the first week of classes, and if you choose to park in this garage, you will need to walk around the block to the front entrance of the Y on Montgomery St. After May 2nd, renovations to the back entrance will be complete, and you may use the walk through again. There is also a garage on the corner of Fayette and Montgomery (with an entrance on Fayette).
And one last reminder . . . Please join us Friday April 23rd at 7pm for poets DeLana Dameron and Jane Springer. Now that you know where to park, you can't use that excuse.
See you downtown!
Friday, April 16, 2010
TONIGHT! Novelist Greg Ames and Poet Bertha Rogers!
Please join us tonight at 7 pm in the GallerY on the 2nd floor of the Downtown YMCA for a reading by award-winning debut novelist Greg Ames and poet, artist and literary guru Bertha Rogers.
In his debut novel, Buffalo Lockjaw, Greg Ames shows us the unexpected: beauty amid the jags of upstate winter, and grace during a mother’s slide into the maw of dementia. And, astonishingly, humor.
On leave from his job at a greeting card company in New York City, slacker-addict James comes home to Buffalo, to celebrate Thanksgiving and to help his taciturn father pack up the family house. He also makes daily trips to Unit D, where nursing home attendants use a machine to hoist his 56-year-old mother from bed to wheelchair and back again. A former nurse, Ellen Fitzroy spoke out in favor of physician-assisted suicide before Alzheimer’s slowly stole her words. Convinced his mother wouldn’t want to live this way, James brings along a copy of “Suicide for Dummies” and secretly hopes to muster the courage to end her life.
While in town, James falls back into old habits with his loser high school buddies – hilarious in their beer-soaked inertia – and draws weary, here-we-go-again looks from his father and successful sister Kate. His checkered history makes it all too easy for the family to rebuff James’ repeated attempts to discuss euthanasia as a family.
Ames manages to mine both comedy and ache from the inevitable family tension, as when James longs to act like man with his father, “smoking cigars and eating bacon, whatever the hell grown men do together.” But most powerful are James’ bedside visits to Unit D, in which Ames bring the anguish of a diminishing disease to shuddering life.
Minutes slow as frozen syrup. Silent suffering. The crushing loss of dignity. She wrote all about this. She treated people in this condition. She stood by their beds, spoke kindly to them. And now she’s here.
Award-winning journalist Laura T. Ryan covered the Central New York literary community for The Post-Standard daily newspaper in Syracuse for more than 11 years. These days, she toggles between two worlds: freelance journalism and fiction writing.
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